TED演讲:企业垄断的新时代(3)

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It has thousands of parts, from the foam¹ that makes the seats to the electrical wiring to the light bulbs. 它由数千个零件组成，从座椅的海绵，到电线，到灯泡。

And for many of those parts, the world's carmakers, they are dependent on only a few suppliers. 对于许多这些零件，世上的汽车制造商只依赖少数供应商。

So it's hardly surprising that it is kind of tempting² for those suppliers to come together and fix prices. 所以，那些供应商会被诱惑到聚在一起定价格，这一点也不奇怪。

But just imagine what that could do to the final price of your new car in the market. 但是想像一下，这么做对新车在市场上的最终价格有何影响。

Except, it's not imaginary. 然而这些并非虚构。

The European Commission has dealt with already seven different car parts cartels, and we're still investigating some. 欧盟委员会已处理了七件不同车零件的垄断案例，还有一些案例我们仍在调查。

Here, the Department of Justice are also looking into the market for car parts, 在这里，司法部也在调查车零件的市场，

and it has called it the biggest criminal investigation³ it has ever pursued. 并称其为有史以来最大宗的刑事调查。

But without competition rules, there would be no investigation, 但是如果没有竞争规范，就不会有任何调查，

and there would be nothing to stop this collusion from happening and the prices of your car to go up. 也没办法阻止这种勾当，然后你轿车的价格就会飙升。

Yet it's not only companies who can undermine fair competition. Governments can do it, too. 破坏公平竞争的除了公司企业，还有政府机构。

And governments do that when they hand out subsidies⁴ to just the favorite few, the selected. 政府发补贴给受青睐的少数时就已经在破坏公平竞争了。

They may do that when they hand out subsidies -- and, of course, all financed by taxpayers⁵ -- to companies. 政府发补贴给企业的时候也可能破坏公平竞争，当然，所有费用由纳税人买单。

That may be in the form of special tax treatments, 这种破坏可能以特别税收待遇的形式出现，

like the tax benefits that firms like Fiat⁶, Starbucks and Apple got from some governments in Europe. 比如，赋税优惠，像菲亚特、星巴克和苹果这类大公司在欧洲得到一些政府的税收优惠。

Those subsidies stop companies from competing on equal terms. 这些补贴破坏了公司间的公平竞争。

They can mean that the companies that succeed, well, they are the companies that got the most subsidy⁷, 这意味着成功的公司是那些得到最多补贴的公司，

the ones that are the best-connected, and not, as it should be, the companies that serve consumers the best. 也是最会搞关系的公司，然而成功的公司应该是给消费者最好的服务的。

So there are times when we need to step in to make sure that competition works the way it should. 所以，我们得时不时介入，确保竞争依其原本的方式进行。

By doing that, we help the market to work fairly, because competition gives consumers the power to demand a fair deal. 这么做，我们帮助市场公平运作，因为竞争使消费者有权做公平的交易。

It means that companies know that if they cannot offer good prices or the service that's expected, well, the customers will go somewhere else. 这表示，如果公司企业知道自己不能提供更好的价格或提供预期的服务，那么消费者就会另寻他处。

 

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